The uMsunduzi Municipality walked into the halls of Parliament this Wednesday carrying a rare trophy: an unqualified audit opinion for the 2024/25 financial year. For a city that spent the previous two years wallowing in qualified opinions, this should have been a moment of triumph for Mayor Mzi Thebolla and municipal manager Felani Mndebele. Instead, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) wasn't in any mood for celebrations. Behind the improved paperwork, the city is still bleeding cash through a maze of irregular spending and stalled internal accountability.

While the books might look cleaner on the surface, the Auditor-General’s report paints a grimmer picture of life on the ground. Think unpaid electricity and water bills, crumbling infrastructure, and a mountain of irregular expenditure that hit R522 million. Odwa Langa, a senior manager in the budget and treasury office, credits the shift to weekly meetings of an audit steering committee. They claim to have resolved half of the previous audit findings. That still leaves 40% of the problems sitting in a state of suspended animation.

"There are cases, more especially in finance, where they are suspended for fraud related cases. But because of the time it has taken to conclude their cases after six months, it then becomes fruitless and wasteful expenditure."

Nelisiwe Ngcobo, the chief financial officer, laid bare the sheer absurdity of the municipality’s disciplinary system. Because investigations into fraud drag on for years, the city ends up paying suspended employees to sit at home. To stop this bleeding, management now moves these staffers to other departments where they can't touch the cash. It’s a creative way to balance a budget, but it hardly solves the underlying culture of misconduct. That misconduct has left the city’s coffers R399 million lighter in just one year.

The most shocking revelation from the session wasn't just the money missing—it was why it stayed missing. When Scopa members asked why disciplinary processes were moving at the speed of a snail, the answers turned dark. Those tasked with holding others accountable have been receiving death threats. The environment inside the council has become so toxic that the municipality had to outsource its disciplinary panels to the South African Local Government Association (Salga) just to get the job done without fear.

This climate of fear hasn't just stopped investigations; it has effectively neutered the city’s ability to act. Because the council is a hung parliament—split between various political parties with no clear majority—getting approval for sensitive forensic reports is nearly impossible. When the political infighting hits its peak, confidential matters linked to disciplinary action simply vanish into the ether. They've remained unresolved since November.

The audit outcome improvement covers up a deep-seated rot in basic operations. The Auditor-General pointedly flagged the city’s inability to collect revenue from timber sales and its failure to stop massive losses from prepaid electricity meter systems. These aren't small glitches; they are fundamental failures in the city’s ability to generate the money it needs to keep the lights on and water flowing.

Eskom and bulk water providers have been left waiting for payments, racking up interest that the municipality can't afford. Felani Mndebele admitted that procurement oversight is shaky at best. He pointed to a pattern of repeatedly extending contracts just because the city is too backlogged to run a new tender process. It’s a cycle of inefficiency that costs taxpayers millions in wasted interest and poorly managed infrastructure projects.

Key Facts

  • R399 million: The amount of fruitless and wasteful expenditure recorded in the current financial year.
  • R522 million: The total irregular expenditure incurred by the municipality during 2024/25.
  • 50%: The percentage of Auditor-General findings that have been officially resolved.
  • 6 months: The threshold after which unpaid suspensions become classified as fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
  • 2022/23 & 2023/24: The years the municipality previously received qualified audit opinions before this year's upgrade.